Barbara Lynn Part 21

"Who, Jan?"

"Him with the reaping-hook."

Lucy laughed his words away, though she shivered.

"It's a coach and six white horses that'll come for thee, Jan. Thee shall ride on velvet cushions, the horses will be shod with gold, and the bits will be made of silver."

"Aye, that's the manner of it," said Peter cheerfully.

"Six white horses and a coach," repeated the old man, then he shook his head. "Coaches is for gentry folk. I'll have to go away with him, the man of the bare bones. He's like me the way he gets his bread, reaping the harvest from the fields, and no' finding mickle fatness in it nouther."

"Come to the fire," said Peter. "You're cold here, come and get warm."

He helped Jan to his feet, and supported the tottering footsteps to the kitchen, where the old man sank into his seat in the ingle-cheek.

The rain was still clattering overhead, and sweeping down the windows in a solid sheet of water, so that nothing could be seen through the gla.s.s.

Peter went to the door, and looked out.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "the beck has wakened up with a vengeance."

"It won't sweep away the house, will it?" asked Lucy. She felt much relieved to have Peter by her side, and even dared to cast her eyes upon the angry stream, swirling under the garden wall.

Her great-grandmother laughed.

"Lucy's a timid la.s.s," she said. "Before you came she thought it was the last day, but I knew the good G.o.d was a better landlord than that, and would want more market out o' his green fields than he's gotten so far, before he burnt them into ashes. Now she's afraid Greystones will fall!

Hoots-toots, bairn. Greystones will stand as long as there's a Lynn to care for it. I've seen many a worser storm than this."

The old woman talked on. When her mind got back to bygone days she was garrulous. Some of her stories offended the fastidious tastes of Lucy, but Peter liked them. Strange customs and coa.r.s.er habits did not blind him to the fact that life and its pa.s.sions are much the same in every age, only wearing a different garb.

Lucy and Peter still stood, one at each side of the doorway, looking out. The beck raced below them, spluttering and foaming, and they could hear the grinding of rocks under its feet. It rose rapidly higher. Even as they watched it s.n.a.t.c.hed at a bush on the opposite bank, twisted it as a child might twist a blade of gra.s.s, rooted it up, and swept it away.

"Barbara will get wet!" said Lucy. "She's at Ketel's Parlour. There's a crack in the roof, and the rain sometimes gets in."

Peter cast a glance at the still teeming clouds. He had not seen Barbara for a long time, and he was half inclined to venture forth, make his way up the dale, through a hundred spouting waterfalls, and share her lonely vigil.

Lucy divined his thoughts. She shut the door hastily and drew him to a seat.

"We'll have tea; you'd like tea, Peter? And great-granny is dying for a cup," she said. Then she whispered so that the old woman could not hear: "I'm so thankful you came--I really was frightened."

Peter allowed himself to be ruled by her, making only a laughing protest. The prospect outside was not enticing, and the prospect within was comfortable and bright.

Lucy stepped lightly about her duties, spreading the table with clap-cakes, b.u.t.ter and honey. Peter's presence excited her; her eyes sparkled; her movements were lively. She dulled her ears to the roar of the torrent, and the rushing of the rain--though both were deafening.

Jan Straw wakened from the sleep into which the kindly warmth of the kitchen had thrown him, and followed her with a steady gaze. He thought that she was a being between an angel and a fairy. Her eyes were blue like flowers with the morning dew in them, her skin was soft and white as the breast feathers of a swan, her cheeks were like roses. He had a confused remembrance of a story, still told in the dale, about the man who had seen the last of the fairies. He had disturbed them at their play, and they had run up a ladder into a cloud, shutting a door after them. No one ever saw them again among the tarns and meres, dancing by moonlight. "Her o' the white fingers" had, also, gone up into a cloud, and been seen no more. But she was an angel. Looking at Lucy he forgot the man with the reaping hook.

Lucy masked the tea, and called Jan to the table. They tried to forget that awesome sound of rushing water outside. Mistress Lynn could be a jovial companion when she chose, and she liked to cross wits with Peter.

He dared to contradict her--such a rare experience she appreciated, for it was done good-humouredly. The old woman had a purpose in unbending to him. She wanted him to marry Lucy.

She wanted it for several reasons--because she liked him and knew he was no fortune-hunter, because she wished to see Lucy settled before Joel came back--she had other plans for Joel--because she was sorry for the girl's disappointment: she knew what blighted hopes felt like when the heart was young. Though she would not have scrupled to add disappointment to disappointment had it suited her purpose, in this case she was at one with her great-grand-daughter, and determined to bring about that which they both desired.

When tea was finished Peter bent over Lucy's chair to read her cup.

"Health and wealth and happiness," he said.

"I've heard it many times," said she, with a light laugh. "I've got the first, and dreamed of the last, but I've still to catch a glint of the other. Read Jan's," she handed him the old man's mug. "Perhaps you'll find something worth having there."

"Nowt but the rheumatics has ever come out o' my cup," said Jan gravely.

"But I see six white horses and a coach," replied Peter.

"Do 'ee now?" Jan put his finger into the empty mug and sorted the tea-leaves one by one, counting them aloud. "So there be," he said.

Lucy began to wash up the dishes, childishly pleased to bare her round, white arms, when there was someone to see them.

Throughout the meal, which had been a merry one, they had tacitly ignored the rain, although it was still coming down--as they say in the dales--whole watter. Now they were suddenly silent. But on the slates it clattered, on the walls it slashed, on the ground it spluttered, through the air it fell hissing. Over and above it the beck thundered.

Mistress Lynn sat upright in her bed, and listened with an expression of awe upon her grim old countenance; Lucy drew nearer to Peter, her eyes wide and panic-stricken; Jan Straw left the ingle.

"Hark!" said the old woman.

Peter went to the door and looked out.

Down the bed of the stream came a foaming, boiling cataract. Seen through the gloom it was suggestive of flying, riderless horses, tossing their manes in the air, and chafing at their bits.

"Six white horses and a coach," muttered Jan, stumbling bare-headed into the rain.

"Come back," cried Lucy.

"Come back," cried Peter.

"Jan, Jan, you old fool," said Mistress Lynn, leaning out from her great bed, and peering across the candle-lit room to the darkness framed by the open door.

But Jan was gone. The garden wall fell and the water rolled up to the doorstep, where it seemed to pause before slowly withdrawing. It did not go back alone. Lucy, regardless of her own safety, impulsive to recklessness where her affections were concerned, followed it, and thinking that she saw Jan but a few steps ahead, ran forward.

The ground gave way under her feet, and the beck had its grip on her in a moment.

The incident happened so swiftly that Peter was already struggling with the flood for the possession of the girl before he realised what had taken place. When he tried to recall it afterwards he could remember nothing save that his hand, by its own sense and cunning, had s.n.a.t.c.hed at her frock as she was being swept past him. He dragged her from the water, and carried her into the house, laying her drenched form down before the fire. She was not unconscious, and stumbled to her feet, crying:

"Jan, save Jan, Peter!"

She would have followed him out again into the slashing rain, but Mistress Lynn called her back peremptorily.

The old woman was terribly upset. She had had to lie in the four-poster and know that something dreadful was taking place outside. She had watched Jan rush out, then Lucy, then Peter; but she had heard nothing save the roar of waters, and seen nothing save a faint white gleam as they foamed by. Now she strove for composure, and wiped the tears that had come unbidden upon her cheeks.

"Go and fettle thyself," she said to the shivering girl. "Then you'll be fit to look after the old man if he needs looking after any more."

Peter raced the beck through the copse where it was ploughing among the tree-trunks; he sought along the basin by the falls, but he could not find a trace of Jan Straw. He shouted, but he could not hear his own voice among the roaring of the waters, much less a cry for help were it uttered. He followed the flood through Cringel Forest to the village, where he told what had happened. Then, knowing that there was no chance now of finding the old man alive, if there had ever been a chance, he retraced his steps to Greystones.

He found Lucy kneeling before the fire drying her hair. A sob broke from her when he returned alone for she had hoped against hope.